Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT) as an Integration within the ShiftGrit Core Method™
Overview
Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT) is a structured, evidence-based form of cognitive behavioural therapy that combines acceptance-oriented and change-oriented strategies to help people regulate intense emotions and reduce harmful behaviours. It is built on a dialectical philosophy that balances accepting clients as they are with helping them build skills to change, and it typically delivers treatment through several coordinated components rather than individual therapy alone.
How it works
Comprehensive DBT generally integrates four modes: weekly individual therapy, group skills training, between-session telephone or skills coaching, and a therapist consultation team. Clients are taught practical skills across four modules: mindfulness, distress tolerance, emotion regulation, and interpersonal effectiveness; the therapist applies these within a framework that validates the person's experience while targeting and reducing life-threatening, therapy-interfering, and quality-of-life-interfering behaviours in a defined hierarchy.
What it is used for
DBT was developed for chronically suicidal individuals and people meeting criteria for borderline personality disorder, where it has the most established evidence base for reducing suicide attempts, self-injury, and psychiatric hospitalization. It has since been adapted and studied for other presentations involving emotion dysregulation, including substance use disorders, eating disorders such as binge-eating and bulimia, treatment-resistant depression, and post-traumatic stress disorder, as well as adolescent populations.
Origins and evidence base
DBT was developed by psychologist Marsha M. Linehan at the University of Washington in the late 1980s, with her foundational randomized controlled trial published in 1991 and her treatment manuals following in 1993. Its efficacy for borderline personality disorder and suicidal behaviour has been supported by multiple randomized controlled trials and replications, including a 2006 trial comparing DBT with treatment by non-behavioural experts, and the approach is widely recognized and recommended in clinical practice guidelines., 1991, and Linehan et al., 2006,.
Within the ShiftGrit Core Method™
Sometimes the hardest part is the stretch between sessions, when emotion runs high and no clinician is in the room. Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT) gives our clients concrete distress-tolerance and emotion-regulation skills for exactly those moments, so they can ride out a wave of strong feeling without slipping back into the old coping habit that keeps a pattern going. The full ShiftGrit Core Method™ is the main course of treatment a client moves through. It pairs Pattern Theory™, which maps how a limiting belief drives a pattern, with the reconditioning and delivery that loosen that belief over time, and those parts work as one. DBT is a supporting tool we reach for selectively when it fits the person in front of us, never a stand-in for that core work. Our clinicians may bring in these skills to help someone stay steady and stay engaged while the rest of the Method continues. The footing DBT provides is genuinely useful, and the shift a client is after comes from the Core Method™ working through the belief underneath the pattern.
Illustrative example
Consider a client whose limiting belief is "I am fragile," and who feels a strong surge of emotion late at night that usually pushes them back into an old coping habit. Our clinicians might teach a few DBT skills they can use in that moment to settle and get through it without acting on the urge. With more steady ground to stand on, that client can keep doing the deeper reconditioning work, which is where the belief itself begins to shift.
Based on: Linehan MM, Armstrong HE, Suarez A, Allmon D, Heard HL. Cognitive-behavioral treatment of chronically parasuicidal borderline patients. Archives of General Psychiatry. 1991;48(12):1060-1064. doi:10.1001/archpsyc.1991.01810360024003 [source]
Clinicians who integrate Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT)
If Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT) is specifically what you are looking for, tell us during matching and we will pair you with a clinician who carries that training. See how we integrate evidence-based modalities within the ShiftGrit Core Method™.
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Find Your PatternTrusted by Leading Psychology & Mental Health Organizations Across Canada
ShiftGrit Psychology & Counselling is professionally regulated, certified, and recognized by leading psychology and mental-health organizations across Canada. These associations reflect our commitment to ethical practice, clinical standards, and evidence-informed therapy through Identity-Level Therapy and Reconditioning.
Trusted By Alberta’s Leading Psychology & Mental Health Organizations
ShiftGrit Psychology & Counselling is professionally regulated, certified, and recognized by leading psychology and mental-health organizations across Alberta and Canada. These associations reflect our commitment to ethical practice, clinical standards, and evidence-informed therapy through Identity-Level Therapy and Reconditioning.
Regulated and affiliated across Alberta’s leading psychology, counselling, and mental-health organizations.
Regulated and affiliated across Canada’s leading psychology, counselling, and mental-health organizations.
The descriptions and examples on this page are provided for general educational and illustrative purposes only. They explain how this approach may be integrated within the ShiftGrit Core Method™ and do not describe a specific client, represent a testimonial, or promise any particular result. Integrated modalities are offered at the discretion of individual clinicians, and whether any approach is appropriate for you is determined together with your clinician, within their professional judgement and scope of practice.
